


You Were Always On My Mind

by orphan_account



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Love Potion/Spell, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Practical Magic AU. Mallory goes to Cordelia and Myrtle for help.





	You Were Always On My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> The plot and characters of American Horror Story: Apocalypse belong to Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The plot and characters of Practical Magic (1998) belongs to Warner Bros. and Roadshow Entertainment. 
> 
> Title is from Elvis' "Always on my Mind." [https://youtu.be/u9sRJ-eOHnc](url)
> 
> All mistakes are my own.

“It was the prophecy, wasn’t it!” Mallory screams up the staircase in the front entry of Robichaux's. “He died because he loved me too much! He wouldn’t end the world with me in it, so they killed him!”

“Oh, my poor little witch.” 

Mallory spins toward the voice and sees Cordelia standing in the doorway to her left. The Supreme frowns unhappily at her former student and wrings the hands clasped demurely in front of her waist. 

Myrtle converges on Mallory’s other side then, emerging from the shadowy right wing of the manor. The older woman, who’d taken to Mallory like she was her own child, looks stricken but resigned.

“We had no idea when we cast the spell,” Cordelia tells her.

“What spell! What are you talking about?” Mallory asks.

Myrtle and Cordelia glance at each other over her head, communicating silently with their eyes.

It hits Mallory then: the attraction, the whirlwind romance with Miss Robichaux's newest student, the intensity and the certainty of their belonging together.

“Oh,” she exhales brokenly, “you didn’t.”

Mallory clutches at her chest and feels fresh tears spring into her red rubbed eyes. “You didn’t. No. _Please _tell me that my own Coven…” 

“It was just a little push,” Myrtle murmurs. “Just a little nudge in the right direction. You wanted so much to be happy and Michael wanted to be good.”

“We never expected that he would truly love you,” Cordelia says, pulling Mallory’s eyes back to her face.

The Supreme doesn’t seem to recognize the cruelty in her words. That Michael loving Mallory was so absurd that they’d overlooked it as a possibility in their little experiment to fix the antichrist.

Anger has magic sparking at Mallory’s fingertips.

She remembers watching an arrogant, scared boy blossom into a gentle young man. Remembers him holding her at night and whispering his secrets into her hair. Telling her how it felt to love and be loved unconditionally for the first time in his life. 

“Well he did,” Mallory cries, voice breaking with her tears. “He loved me, and I want him back!” 

Loss and rage propel her up the staircase then, and to the library behind the first door on the right. Hurried footsteps follow behind her, but she pays them no mind. 

Pushing past the oak door, Mallory strides toward the bookcase at the back of the room and grabs a thick volume bound in human skin. She can feel the disappointment in Myrtle and Cordelia’s gazes. 

Hefting the spell book in her arms, Mallory turns to them and says, “you brought him into my life, now I want you to bring him back.”

She drops the book on a reading table with a loud thump and immediately starts flipping through the pages.

“Bring him back,” she says again, adrenaline slick fingers clumsy on the velum pages. “I have never asked you for anything. I can’t do this by myself. But you can!”

“We won’t do that,” Myrtle tells her. 

“We don’t do the kind of magic required to bring someone like him back,” Cordelia explains. 

Mallory shakes her head disbelievingly. She gestures at the pages in front of her, and says, “but you can. You _can _do this. I know you can. Michael found a spell.”

He wanted her to be prepared. To have a plan B. He knew that his father wouldn’t be happy with his choices, that he’d be punished one way or another for abandoning his destiny. 

“Even if we did bring him back, it wouldn’t be Michael. It would be something dark. The demonic half minus the anchor of his human soul,” Cordelia warns her.

“I don’t care what he comes back as!” Mallory shouts, slamming her hands on the table. “I don’t care, just as long as he comes back! Please, do this for me."

Cordelia and Myrtle stare at her sadly, unmoved by her hysterics.

Mallory sinks to the floor then, the last of her fight leaving with their resistance. A river of seemingly endless tears streams down her face. She brings trembling hands up to cradle her pregnant belly and begs, “please, _please, _please.”

\--

When Cordelia’s driver drops Mallory off outside of her and Michael’s apartment that night, she feels her grief solidify into true despondency.

Michael’s gone and he’s not coming back. She’s failed him. Failed their child.

Mallory's eyes are unseeing. When she enters the apartment, she doesn’t register the boots lined up neatly by the front door, the calendar with her C-section date circled in red pen or the rings strewn carelessly across Michael's bedside table. She floats past the detritus of a life interrupted and crawls straight into bed.

It’s been a week since an SUV full of Satan worshipers plowed into Michael in a crosswalk. She hasn’t washed the sheets; can’t bring herself to. If she closes her eyes and inhales the scent that’s just Michael she can almost imagine that he’s lying there beside her.

“I’m sorry,” Mallory says into the dark of the empty room. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t bring you back.”

Tears soak the cotton of her pillow case as she drifts off into an uneasy sleep.

\--

Tentative pressure of another body against hers, warm breath dancing across her cheek. Mallory wakes from a murky dream to the sensation of a fingertip tracing down her nose to her lips.

She blinks open her eyes and sees a ghost. 

Wintry eyes, a patrician profile and generous lips. Her mind conjures up memories of the sound of her name on a clever tongue and the warmth of sleek skin. 

Michael blinks back at her and digs the edge of his thumbnail into her cheek. The small bite of pain gives Mallory pause. The only wounds a ghost can inflict are emotional. 

“Michael?” she whispers. “Is it you?” 

A tear slips from Michael’s eye as he nods his head. Mallory launches herself across the few inches between them and buries her face into his chest. She kisses him, brushing her lips happily over every inch of his flesh. 

“You were gone,” she sobs. “You were gone, and I couldn’t get you back.” 

She’s nuzzling his neck when she realizes that he’s not reciprocating her affection. He's gone completely stiff.

“Michael, what’s wrong?” she asks.

He rolls them then, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcing her over onto her back. He straddles her legs and squeezes a big hand around her neck. She's pinned. 

Her lover's smile is soft, but his eyes are anything but. “Michael isn’t home right now, dearest.” The fingers around her throat flex. “He gave you a gift. I’m here to take it back.”

The thing wearing Michael's skin doesn’t wait for Mallory’s response. A knife hidden among the sheets presses against her stomach. “Stay still,” it whispers.

_No no no no._

Mallory screams silently as the sharp edge slips beneath her skin. Warmth spills over, running down to pool beneath her back.

She whimpers as the blade sinks deeper.

There’s pain then. A lot of pain.

She slips away from herself between hitching breaths. 

\-- 

Lucifer holds the squalling infant over the husk of its mother’s body. He peels back what remains of the caul and sees beyond the veil.

Birth gray eyes meet glossy black. 

“Hello, Eve. Grandpa’s been waiting a very long time to meet you.”


End file.
